Chiaki Kobayashi
Chiaki Kobayashi is an actor, born 1994.
Kobayashi is a Japanese voice actor with Office Osawa, born in Kanagawa in 1994, and his early credits read like every young seiyuu's first years: Ordinary Cell 2 in Cells at Work!, a gatekeeper in Wandering Witch, a host in A Place Further than the Universe, Tony Freyd in Wise Man's Grandchild. Small parts, a lot of them, over several seasons.
The turn came in 2020 and 2021. Makoto Edamura in Great Pretender gave him a lead with a con man's rhythm, forever half a beat behind the scheme he is standing in the middle of, and Langa Hasegawa in SK8 the Infinity gave him the opposite, a lead who barely raises his voice while the series around him screams. That is the thing he does better than most of his generation. He can hold a scene by being the quietest person in it, and he never confuses volume with intensity.
Then 2023, a year busy enough to make him unavoidable: Stark in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Mash Burnedead in MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES, Gabimaru in Hell's Paradise, three leads across three of the season's biggest series. Since then he has taken Yuichi Katagiri in Tomodachi Game, Kyo Kasahara in Blue Box, Ragna in Ragna Crimson, Adachi in Cherry Magic, Yoshiki Tsujinaka in The Summer Hikaru Died and Deuce Spade in the Twisted-Wonderland animation. On film there are Summer Ghost and Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop.
Movies (6)
TV (56)
- Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (2023)
- Hell's Paradise (2023)
- Cells at Work! (2018)
- The Ramparts of Ice (2026)
- MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES (2023)
- Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! (2024)
- Go for It, Nakamura-kun!! (2026)
- SAKAMOTO DAYS (2025)
- The Summer Hikaru Died (2025)
- Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles (2021)
- Great Pretender (2020)
- WIND BREAKER (2024)
- SING "YESTERDAY" FOR ME (2020)
- Moriarty the Patriot (2020)
- Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina (2020)
- Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill (2023)
- Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire ♀ (2023)
- Blue Box (2024)
- Metallic Rouge (2024)
- SK8 the Infinity (2021)
- Sonny Boy (2021)
- A Condition Called Love (2024)
- Play It Cool, Guys (2022)
- Boogiepop and Others (2019)
- Arknights (2022)
- Tomodachi Game (2022)
- Ragna Crimson (2023)
- The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World (2025)
- The Aristocrat's Otherworldly Adventure: Serving Gods Who Go Too Far (2023)
- The Shiunji Family Children (2025)
Where to start with Chiaki Kobayashi
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is the best series on this list and the best argument for him. Stark is written as a coward with a hero's job, and Kobayashi plays the fear as real rather than comic, which is the whole reason the character lands.
If you want him leading, Great Pretender is the one, a con-artist series with the sharpest writing he has been handed, and SK8 the Infinity is the enjoyable opposite, all motion and colour with him as the still point.
For the loud stuff, Hell's Paradise gives him a stoic assassin and MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES a deadpan comic lead, and the two together show his range better than either does alone. Blue Box and The Summer Hikaru Died are the quiet recent work, and Summer Ghost is the short film worth seeking out.